Problems with HTTPS and LWP and Perl

Basically, Leopard doesn't come with Crypt::SSLeay, so you can't use HTTPS until you install it. There are a few steps involved in doing getting things running:

1. You'll need to build Crypt::SSLeay, so install XCode from your Leopard DVD.
2. Download Crypt::SSLeay from CPAN -- http://search.cpan.org/~dland/Crypt-SSLeay-0.57/SSLeay.pm
3. Copy it into a temp/downloads directory
4. Open a terminal and switch into the directory where you put the file
5. Untar/zip it like this tar -fxz Crypt-SSLeay-0.57.tar.gz
(your filename might differ here depending which version you get)
6. Switch into the Crypt-SSLeay-0.57 directory
7. Run the following commands, accepting any defaults along the way
i. perl Makefile.PL
ii. make
iii. make test
iv. sudo make install

You have to run the finally "make install" command using sudo because the installer needs to create a several directories in /System and /Library, and typical user accounts lack the required permissions.

Anyway, after you run all that, it should work. I just tried it out and lwp-request -x https://www.paypal.com runs perfectly fine.

If you don't feel like going through all the trouble of installing XCode and then downloading and building Crypt::SSLeay, you could always use curl ($ curl https://www.paypal.com/), or just make a system call from within Perl to have curl take care of the HTTPS for you.

Cheers,

/hsy

You can also install it using the Perl CPAN repository. In a terminal window, just type:
sudo perl -MCPAN -e "install Crypt::SSLeay"

If it's the first time you've run CPAN, it will ask you a bunch of question about the location of various file. You can usually just keep pressing return to accept the defaults.